Funchi

Easy·20 min active + 5 min resting

The ABC-islands cornmeal polenta — cornmeal stirred into boiling salted water with butter until thick and smooth, served as the everyday starch beside stoba and fish, or fried into crisp wedges.

Cornmeal

Butter

Salt

Funchi is the cornmeal mush of the ABC islands — first cousin to West African fufu and Italian polenta — stirred stiff and served as the everyday starch beside stew. Its presence is a quiet map of the African heritage that shaped these islands.

Spoon up funchi and it is smooth, thick, and buttery, mild and gently corn-sweet — a comforting starch that soaks up stoba gravy. Bite: creamy and soft like polenta, neutral and soothing, the butter rounding it. Fried into wedges it turns crisp-golden outside and soft within. The everyday cornmeal staple of the Dutch ABC islands.

Cornmeal cooked in boiling water with constant stirring gelatinizes into a thick, smooth mush (like polenta); vigorous stirring prevents lumps. Butter adds richness. Cooled and set, it can be cut and fried crisp — the neutral starch that carries the islands' savory stews.

Variations

Fried into crisp wedges. With cheese stirred in. Sweeter as a breakfast. With coconut milk. Firmer (more cornmeal). Grilled.

On the Palate

Where Funchi sits in the Aruban flavor cloud

Ingredients

Serves 4

200 gCornmeal

30 gButter

1 tspSalt

How it's made

8 steps · 20 min active + 5 min waiting

1
3 min
Bring 600 ml water with 1 tsp salt and 20 g butter to a boil.
2
3 min
Rain in 200 g fine cornmeal slowly, whisking constantly to avoid lumps.
Watch out
Rain the cornmeal in a thin stream while whisking hard and non-stop — dump it in and you get lumps you can't beat out.
3
2 min
Switch to a wooden spoon (funchi stick) and stir vigorously over heat.
4
10 min
Cook, stirring, 10 min until very thick and pulling away from the pot.
Watch out
Keep stirring until it's thick enough to pull away from the pot sides and mound on the spoon — that's when the starch has set.
5
1 min
Stir in a little more butter for richness.
6
3 min
Spoon into a buttered bowl and turn out as a smooth mound (or spread to cool and cut).
7
6 min
Optionally cut cooled funchi into wedges and pan-fry until crisp.
Watch out
Fry the cooled wedges without moving them until a firm golden crust forms, then flip — poke too soon and they stick and tear.
8
1 min
Serve as a side with stoba, fish, or stew.